South Wales fire service taken over after sexual harassment probe

A fire service found to have a culture of sexual harassment and misogyny will be taken over by the Welsh government.

Minister Hannah Blythyn said, without action, management failings at South Wales Fire and Rescue Service could “put lives at risk”.

In a highly critical intervention, she suggested the service was uninterested in better ways of fighting house fires.

Four government-appointed commissioners will take over the powers of the South Wales Fire and Rescue Authority.

Ms Blythyn, deputy minister for social partnership, said the commissioners would be able to restructure and reform its management to ensure a “wholesale change in processes, values and culture”.

The service said it welcomed the “scrutiny and direction” the commissioners would provide.

The announcement was also praised by Welsh Women’s Aid.

Last month, Fenella Morris KC’s report concluded that south Wales fire service bosses had tolerated sexual harassment and domestic abuse outside work.

Allegations of sexism and abusive behaviour towards staff had prompted the investigation, which found “serious deficiencies in the service” after surveying more than 450 staff.

The report concluded the service “tolerates” firefighters posting sexualised images in their uniform on adult platform OnlyFans.

After the findings were published Chief fire officer Huw Jakeway apologised and will be stepping down.

Under the changes announced by Ms Blythyn on Tuesday, the commissioners replace the South Wales Fire and Rescue Authority and its 24 members.

The authority is composed of councillors from the region’s 10 local authorities.

She named the commissioners as:

In one of the harshest Welsh government assessments of a public body for many years, Ms Blythyn told the Senedd: “I do not have confidence that the service has the internal capacity or capability to oversee its own recovery.

“Management at all levels, up to and including the highest, has been implicated in the identified failings.

“They cannot be both the problem and the solution.

“And the chief fire officer’s stated intention to retire is clearly insufficient to stimulate the wholesale change in processes, values and culture which will be necessary.”

The minister said “clear and committed leadership” was need to “drive through change”.

“I am also seriously concerned that these failings jeopardise the service’s ability to function safely and effectively.

“The lack of proper management control and tolerance of bad practice that the report identified has wider ramifications, beyond issues of misconduct and discrimination.

“That is unacceptable in any public service, especially one charged with protecting people from serious harm.”

The minister told the Senedd that many recommendations by the Welsh government’s chief fire and rescue adviser on learning the lessons of the Grenfell Tower fire and firefighter training “had been rejected out of hand”.

She said: “Such a response would suggest the organisation is uninterested in better ways of fighting house fires or minimising the risk of fatigue, or ensuring that firefighters have the skills they need.”

Ms Blythyn also accused the service of doing “nothing meaningful” to tackle false fire alarms since the Welsh government called for action on the matter in 2016.

“It is clearly the worst performer in Wales, and among a group of broadly comparable FRSs [fire and rescue services] in Wales and England.”

This reflected “the same management insularity and tolerance of bad practice identified in the review”, she told the Senedd.

“It has not just led to staff misconduct and discrimination – it is also affecting service quality and efficiency, and the safety of firefighters, and we must act to address that.”

The minister said the commissioners would have “full powers to restructure and reform service management and instil a positive, non-discriminatory culture” and they would stay in post until the service was “an inclusive and welcoming workplace for all”.

No timescale has been put on the commissioners’ work, but in her report, Fenella Morris suggested it could take about 18 months for her recommendations to be implemented.

The move was welcomed by Welsh Women’s Aid, which praised the government’s “commitment to ensuring accountability and safeguarding within essential public services which exist to protect all of our communities”.

In a statement, the charity said: “It is imperative that survivors are supported, perpetrators are held accountable, and robust systems are implemented to prevent such abuses from occurring in the future.”

In the Senedd the Welsh Conservatives’ Joel James said it was “overwhelmingly clear” that the management of South Wales Fire and Rescue Service “are the ones who have been instrumental in allowing this unsavoury and harmful culture to fester within the fire service”.

But he said that unless the deputy minister took action “to redesign disciplinary procedures and introduce new methods of reconciling poor behaviour early on then you risk that very poor culture identified not being changed at all”.

“There’s a real big risk here that we’ve had a well thought through approach from Welsh government that that is sensitive to the good and positive aspects of working in South Wales Fire and Rescue, and there are many, we will see more fire service men and women leaving”.

Plaid Cymru’s Sioned Williams backed ministers’ “robust action” but said wider questions remained about “accountability, scrutiny and the nature and effectiveness of governance” at fire services in Wales.

“The need to ensure better and more effective governance by separating the executive role from the scrutiny role of all fire authorities is something that has been apparent for decades now,” she said.

The Labour government’s “lack of progress” on such a reform “contributed to a lack of action which in part has led to the unacceptable situation which was allowed to develop in the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service”, Ms Williams added.

South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said it welcomed the “scrutiny and direction that will be provided by the four appointed commissioners”.

In a statement it said it wanted to “reassure the public and all staff that we would never compromise on their safety, and this was supported in the report”.

“To date, the service has continued to take forward the Draft Action Plan in response to the recommendations within the Independent Culture Review Report.

“Last week we held five staff sessions to consult on the plan, with another three sessions planned for this week, to fulfil our promise of engaging with staff on how to take recommendations forward.”